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Saturday, July 19, 2008

I was brushing my teeth at the washbasin, when a foreigner come out from one of the toilets there. (We have quite a few exchange students on campus). He was in quite a rush, and the moment he saw me, he blurted out a frantic "Hi". I managed a "Hello" in response, through my frothing mouth. And there was a queer bout of silence when he was washing his hands. Wishing to break it, I asked him:"Are you from this block?""No I am not""Hmm.. Was wondering.. I haven't seen you around here"Seemingly stunned by what I had just said, he thought for a second and then said,"I come here only if it's very urgent"and rushed off to class.I felt so bloody embarrassed!! I had half a mind to call him back and clarify that I had actually referred to the block and not the restroom. But he had vanished by then.An open request to all my readers: If you come across any blog by a non-Indian that narrates the harrowing experience of being asked about restroom preferences by an Indian, do mail me the link. Would like to know the other side of the story.

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We have a section on our intranet portal for registering hostel complaints. A couple of days back, when I had a few minutes to kill, I went through the list of complaints that others had registered. Much of it was about broken locks and mosquitoes in the bathroom.But there was this one complaint that kept surfacing time and again: "Getting hot water from all taps in the bathrooms and toilets. Very uncomfortable. Please set things right asap." It was the same guy who had registered the complaints many times over a few days. Apparently no action was taken for a while.And this is what our guy put up next:

Vishy, too funny and even funnier was the first comment here from Karthik imagining in Vivek's pose. Another character which comes to my mind is Vadivelu in another Prabhu movie where he runs out of water!!